“Shit,” Milo grimaced. “I didn’t realize it was so late.” He left his position at the sidelines to get Bobby’s attention. “Bobby!” Reluctantly, Bobby stopped his dancing and got to his feet. The crowd applauded, but I’m not sure if it was over his performance or because he stopped. “We gotta get going.”
“Alright!” Bobby shrugged and headed to the door, but Milo stopped him. Bobby was shirtless, wearing only a pair of black skinny jeans, so he could show off his tattooed torso.
“Where’s your shirt?” Milo asked him.
“Uh… I don’t know?” Bobby looked around, but everyone had gone back to doing their own thing, and his sweatshirt wasn’t lying about. “Whatever. It’s fine. Let’s go.”
“It’s like twenty degrees outside!” Milo sounded irritated. “And you’re covered in sweat! You’ll get hypothermia if you go out like that!” He turned to me apologetically. “Sorry. We gotta go find his shirt. Or at least a shirt.”
Milo and Bobby disappeared onto the dance floor to scour for his shirt, but my bet was on them coming up empty handed. Milo wore a thin tee shirt, so he didn’t have anything to lend him. I looked around for anything Bobby could put on.
I bumped into a girl when I wasn’t paying attention.
“Sorry,” I said, glancing over at her. Then I realized who it was, and we both stopped.
Before I had turned, a pair of vampires had decided they wanted to eat me. Peter had taken care of the guy, but the girl – Violet – had gotten away. She had this whole Halloween get up when she was with him – too much makeup, fake fangs, and bright purple hair.
Since he died, she’d traded it all in for a normal, pretty look, going back to her natural blond hair and subtle makeup. I’d seen her around the club a few times, but I’d only ever talked to her once. She seemed too afraid of me, and after what Peter did to her friend, I didn’t really blame her.
“Sorry,” Violet said quickly, even though I was the one who had run into her.
“Hey!” I said as cheerily as I could and stopped her from scampering away.
Sure, she had tried to kill me, or at least attempt to facilitate my kidnapping, but she seemed like a lost kid. She had turned when she was only fourteen because she was love struck with some stupid boy, and that’d only been two years ago. If I were being perfectly honest with myself, I saw a lot of Jane in her.
“Hey, sorry.” Violet talked to me to be polite, but her eyes scanned everywhere else. “I’ll try and watch where I’m going next time.”
“No, it was my bad,” I apologized, and she gave me a funny look. “How are you doing?”
“Great.” Her strange purple eyes eyed me up for a minute, then her face softened. “I heard about your friend. I’m sorry.”
“You heard about her?” I asked and my heart sped. “What’d you hear?”
“Um, nothing, really,” she said took a step back. “I just… I knew that she’d died. I saw her picture on the TV, and I met her once, when she was with you.” Violet used the term “met” loosely. She’d nearly killed Jane that night, too.
Something in my gut twisted. Peter had killed her friend to save me. Would Violet stoop so low as to kill Jane to get back at me? My expression must’ve changed, because Violet blanched and her heart beat faster.
“I don’t know anything about it! Honest!” Her fear made her look younger. “I just… I thought… I was trying to be nice.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” I shook my head, trying to shake away any hint of an accusation. “Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. I mean, for your condolences.”
“Yeah,” Violet nodded. Chewing her lip, she stared at me for a minute, then gestured vaguely to the left of her. “I’m gonna… go. Dance or whatever.”
“Yeah, alright,” I nodded and smiled at her. “Have fun.”
The dance floor swallowed her, and I wondered why exactly I forced that conversation with her. Just because she was lost didn’t mean I had to find her. It wasn’t like I had been that helpful to Jane.
In fact, I never seemed to help anyone. I just made their lives worse, and I seemed to get everyone I cared about in near death situations. It was probably in Violet’s best interest if she avoided me.
Milo and Bobby found me a minute later. Bobby was wearing a sexy black Member’s Only Jacket that Milo had to buy off another vampire. Milo grumbled about it the entire way to the car, but Bobby just chattered on about his awesome dance moves.
With Peter gone, I had taken to driving his Audi, since I had finally gotten my license. The Audi didn’t have a backseat, so we had been forced to take the Jetta tonight, but I drove, because as it turned out, I loved driving. I had spent all this time fighting it, and it was awesome.
In the car, I blasted the music to drown at the beginnings of Milo and Bobby’s bickering.
But my mind wasn’t on them. I pushed the car as fast it would go, despite Milo’s protests from the backseat, and thought about what I had said to Olivia. I had been training for over two months. I wasn’t the best, but I could definitely take out Jane’s killer. I mean, he only preyed on weak, human girls. That was no match for me, right?
Now, all I had to do was figure out who it was.
6
Jack slept sprawled out on his stomach across the bed, and I curled up next to him, resting my head on his back. We both slept soundly after another rough morning trying to get to sleep. I’m not sure if it was still jetlag from Australia, but I had a terrible time falling asleep, and Jack forced himself to stay up with me.